the wearing of the belt for chinese arts

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i have been told, and from the responses here that the belt system doesnt seem to be popular with the chinese arts, ecspecially wing chung or JKD, i dont have knowledge upon this but with the two chinese arts that i study ;

 

ho-gar kung fu and chinese kickboxing, they both require that i wear a belt, that belt system for both arts are the following

 

white (u have to earn it)

 

yellow

 

orange

 

green

 

blue

 

purple

 

brown

 

the black, does the chinese arts that you practise include the wearing of the belt, but if not, why??

 

 

[Iron Arahat]

The belt I wear holds up my pants.

 

Color is that of the school, nothing more.

 

Why do we have no belts?

 

Tradition, the system has never had belts.

 

 

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i undestand that its tradition

 

then how does a chinese martial artist distinquish himself from another but who is less experienced?

 

i understand there is different types of "ranks" in JKD, is that how the system works for all chinese martial arts?

 

i would like to here the view from other practioner of chinese martial arts

[mastertae]

In Korea the belt system is supposed to represent experience not actually saying one person is better than the other. For instance white means newly born or inexperienced and as a person keeps training the belt becomes darker until it is finally black thus the black belt is formed. Most kung fu's do not have a belt system Your respect is earned through hard work. I never did kung fu in the traditional sense. I did not go to an actual school. The first kung fu I learned was from a man who is full blooded chinese I was friends with his son on the way home He would teach me and his son. Than I moved o florida were I met and became good friends with a person who did various arts and to this day we still train together. I did take a tai chi class for a while as well as various others but I found my self taking other martial arts other than kung fu

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from the response that you gave me mastertae, its seems as if you are not particulary interested in traditional kung fu, is this primarily because of its lack of the belt system,

 

i know with my youth i would opposed to practicing an art with no belt, (no black belt ) but in the exceptional position i am but in i am learning traditional chinese martial arts, (but in retrospect it seems to be very univeral), and that it actually has a belt system, but i thing is partly introduced, just so profit can be made and that i have a 3rd generation instructor.

 

Any other chinese martial artist who have the same situation?

[MonkeyNinja]

I went to a Shaolin Kung Fu dojo, in Colo.Springs. and they did have a belt system. Now grant it was run by an American.

 

Personally, I wear a blue sash because it matches my kung-fu outfit.

 

It should be up to the school as to belt(s).

 

In Ninjitsu (traditional) we do not wear colored belts. Unless it is to match our gi. White=for snow/winter gi. Camo belt=camo gi, etc.

 

The reason we wear colored belts is for the occasional tournaments.

 

Train hard guys !!

 

MonkeyNinja

[mastertae]

on the contrary. I meant not a traditional setting for a school. I.E. I trained alot of the Gung Fu in some ones back yard. I like the fact that there is no belt system. In fact i think in many cases it is better.

[mastertae]

In fact all the Gung fu that I learn had no belt system and I think it helped me concentrate beter since I did not have to worry about testing. The only true test is applying it to the street and I hope that I never have that opportunity. Sure i've been in a few fights but nothing that I would have to seriously use the art. A system with no belt system I believe is also better because many people can become ****y when they get their first black belt. Ironically my grand master in TKD and Hapkido once told me "Any-one can become a first second or third degree black belt but to spend thirty years in hard earned training to reach the ultimate level in your ability should be the greatest goal not the belt around your dobak. For a belt is just that a symbol and it is you who makes the martial artist."

[Iron Arahat]

Monkey Ninja who was your Shaolin instructor in colorado? Was it shaolin or shaolin-do?

 

Chinese martial arts will learn what is past to him, based on his ability and work ethic.

 

How does one distinguish himself. You can tell the difference in the way one performs forms or spars. He who trains hard earns the respect of his peers, and does not need a belt to have that respect. To the same accord someone can train for 10 years, albiet not very hard, and have less respect or ability than one who has trained for a couple.

 

 

[Coonaxus]

I'm in a Hung-Ga school in NYC. We have somewhat of a belt system. We use black sashes. They match our black pants and we also wear yellow t-shirts with the school logo on them. There are 3 levels in the school, Ya-cup, Yee-cup, and Sam-cup (not sure if that's how you write 1,2,3 in chinese, that's just how the numbers sound to me). Each level has 2 sub-levels. When you first start the school, you get a plain, black sash. That means you're not even a beginner, you have to earn your first red stripe at the tip of the belt. When you get it, that means you are a beginner. Everytime, you test on the next form after that, you get another stripe until you have 6 stripes. 3 on each end of the sash, then you can become a sifu and get the sifu sash, which is black with a red outline along the edge of the entire sash. I don't know if this will help any, but this is how we do it at our school.